She Builds. She Serves. She Leads

AkiraChix vision is to nurture generations of women who use technology to develop innovations and solutions for Africa. AkiraChix gives women technology and entrepreneurial skills, empowering them technologically and financially, enabling them to serve and lead their communities.

The adoption of ICT in general by women in Kenya has been low despite the general increase of technology application and usage. In the past few years, the ICT Sector has emerged as a steadily growing contributor to the Kenyan economy. Currently, technology contributes 24% of the total GDP growth and 5% to the overall country GDP. This has been largely due to the major advancements in infrastructure, favorable government policy, as well as an active and innovative private sector. Technology has been a male dominated field over the years with major contributors and consumers being men and very few women (15%) actively involved in the sector. A November 2014 research study commissioned by AkiraChix supports this by reporting that even though women constitute slightly over half (50.3%) of the entire Kenyan population, the near equal split does not reflect in the uptake of opportunities between the two genders as would be expected. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)  fields and careers still suffer from a minimal engagement by women. There are several reasons for this, but most significant are socio-economic challenges women and girls  face more than their male counterparts. Essentially, lack of access to financing, training and appropriate mentorship, lack of role models and lack of exposure are some of the contributing factors.

AkiraChix has developed programs to empower women and girls especially in ICT and Entrepreneurship, which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 5 - “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower all women and girls”. As a capacity building effort we aim to deepen our intervention for the women in the technology arena whilst also mobilizing communities and partners to invest in girls’ education as this helps them venture into careers that revolutionize the communities they hail from.

Though women make over half the African population, the key decision making roles they hold are not representative of this quantity. The gender gap originates from dis-empowerment through existing structures. From the onset, girls are equated to property and therefore most vulnerable to risks such as poverty. Once they begin school, gender slurs are used to insinuate that they are not intelligent and are discouraged from pursuing Science courses. This has translated too few women transitioning into STEM careers. AkiraChix has created a space with an agenda to provide leadership and STEM training to vulnerable girls and young women.

Unemployment among females has been high. The proportion of females with a job, formal or informal, is lower than that of males for all ages. Females’ relative disadvantage in accessing informal jobs is worst at around 25 years of age. In the case of access to formal jobs, the disadvantage simply widens throughout the entire youth period. Despite the increased primary and secondary enrollment by girls, this wide gender gap persists in labour participation especially in STEM related occupations in Kenya. AkiraChix is keen on addressing this gap, through training, outreach to school students and engagement with women in technology.

AkiraChix aim is to increase the number of women in the field  of Technology ,by continuing to build on it’s four programs, the programs target women and girls between the ages of 7-24. Through  a fully funded technical training for young women where their skills are built in computer programming, graphic design and entrepreneurship. Weekly coding sessions with kids and girls between the ages of 7-18, where they learn to code with programs such as scratch and Robotics , event’s that target women in universities as well as those already working in the Technology field.

Attendance registers administered at each session.

Assessments of the beneficiaries’ understanding of content taught.

Assessment of the beneficiaries’ business plans / projects.

Project monitoring tools and reports

- Training Program targeted to reach 25 young women from impoverished backgrounds per year

Attendance registers administered at each session.

Pre and post tests administered to participating high school girls.

Survey at the bootcamps

- 1,000 young people engaged in outreach program events per year

Evaluation forms administered during hack-a-thon events.

Surveys during ICT networking events.

Attendance registers at each event.

Guided observations by project and implementing partner staff

Surveys during events.

Attendance registers

- 1,000 participants attend community building program events per year

We have one goal  to equip girls and young women with the knowledge and skills they will need to advance their life and career trajectories. To do this effectively our organization identified gaps that can be closed. Inasmuch as there are many girl focused initiatives, most focus on health. STEM focused jobs continue to increase in demand. Girls and young women do not get the support they need to tap or leverage such opportunities . We see our strengths positively challenging socio-cultural norms because ‘when you educate a girl, you empower her community’.

Technological innovation and IT as a whole provides platforms for socio-economic development. With the right support, women have the potential to play a significant role in the development agenda .Therefore, if technology is key to the advancement of a society, then integrating women in technology is fundamental to development as well.As a capacity building effort we aim to deepen our intervention for the women in the technology arena whilst also mobilizing communities and partners to invest in girls’ education as this helps them venture into careers that revolutionize the communities they hail from

AkiraChix admits 25 underprivileged promising young women from different slums in Nairobi to train. The girls go through a selection process, once qualified the girls are fully funded to attend the training for a period of one year, they’re  provided with laptops, materials , food as well as trainers. Our outreach activities are done in computer labs within different  primary and high school  thus making it easy for the students to access. Our community events are held in easy accessible locations, we rely on partnerships to make sure the women in the community can attend at free or subsidized cost.

AkiraChix believes that moving strategically towards sustainability leads to innovation, new opportunities, reduced costs, and dramatically reduced ecological and social impacts. AkiraChix runs paid classes for young women and girls, that have means to pay. Through the training, AkiraChix aims to empower the young women to be the future policy makers in the country. This will allow them be in a position to air their experiences and highlight the need for additional support both from the local government and organizations that seek to empower women.

Our capacity  which sometimes is  inadequate to sustain an effective project.

Limited funds that prevent us from executing our projects effectively

We have to grapple with a political economic culture with a high corruption index

Economic shocks, which may affect the exchange rates or changing the cost in soft and tangible services.

In-country risks such as political instability and systemic violence.

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Over the years, AkiraChix has developed a model that has proven to be replicable not only in Kenya, but in other parts of Africa. We are ready to scale and are hopeful that solve will be instrumental in linking us with  resources and expertise  to see this come to fruition. We believe with Solve we will be able to access  a community of industry experts who come on board as trainers, speakers and mentors to the beneficiaries of AkiraChix. Additionally, through solve  resources, there will be a boost towards developing an accredited curriculum in partnership with government and education institutions.

Forum Syd

Segal Family Foundation

Google Kenya

Us Embassy Kenya

Amadeus

Sida Stokholm

Nairobits

African Centre for Women & ICT

Moringa School

Andela